22 Sep 2013

Public Officers have been informed that purchasing of new vehicles will not be a solution to the existing problem of shortage of transport that currently cripples service delivery.

President Lt Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama said when addressing public officers meeting in Letlhakane on September 19 that transport shortage was due to the fact that Central Transport Organisation (CTO) was not coping with the work load and therefore delay servicing vehicles.

President Khama said government was aware that CTO could not service vehicles on time and therefore had taken a deliberate decision to decentralise maintenance of vehicles to individual ministries.

He said each ministry would have budget for maintenance and would have an option of whether to service at CTO or engage private garages. He said decentralising would help address transport shortage as CTO would not be overwhelmed with requests from various ministries to service their vehicles.
President Lt Gen. Khama has also indicated that some vehicles constantly required service due to driver negligence.

He therefore called on supervisors to fully monitor use of government fleet to cut maintenance costs. President Lt Gen. Khama said ministries would also be given a chance to choose vehicles that would be suitable for the terrain that they worked in. As for replacement of boarded vehicles, the President said under the current financial year about 300 new vehicles were purchased.

He said since the 2008/2009 financial year, government was unable to buy new vehicles due to recession and only managed a few in 2012. “We will continue to improve based on the budget,” he said. ENDS